Lunar Conspiracy Sciences the $h!t out of me... but Lacks the Same Spark

So let's get this out of the way, right off the bat: anyone expecting a stellar follow-up to Andy Weir's immensely-entertaining debut, The Martian, with his sophomore outing (the soon-to-be-released Artemis), may be a little disappointed... not because it isn't a fun read, but because the bar was set SO very high from the get-go.

The Martian was in my top-five books for 2014, because it hit on all cylinders. Smart, funny, smart-ass, regular-guy hero? Check. Fascinating setting, depicted in glorious detail so that it felt like I was there, too? Check. Seemingly-impossible snafus to get out of? Check. Thrilling, edge-of-my-seat kind of ending... that also seemed plausible? Yep, check.

On paper, Artemis has most of the same kinds of things going for it. Bright, wise-acre, ordinary-gal hero (a young female protagonist who's on the shady side, but close enough)? Roger that. Cool setting, given ample descriptions to make it "real" (a little town on the moon)? Got it. Jams and scrapes aplenty (on the moon, as with Mars, it sorta goes without saying they're seemingly impossible, eh?)? You bet. Nail-biting ending? Yep, more or less. 

Why, then, did Artemis leave me content to move on to the next read... rather than unwilling to pick up something new for a few days, as its predecessor did? Let's take a look...
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Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is a porter in Artemis, the first permanent settlement on the moon ("porter" being a euphemism for smuggler, by the way). It's not so much that she's an outright criminal, more that she knows how to slide past a lot of pesky little legalities while trading in contraband, and in turn ekes out a very meager living for her efforts. So, although she's a huge disappointment to her welder father (who naturally wanted his talented daughter to follow in his respected footsteps), she manages to fill a necessary void (people who really want contraband-whatever are gonna get it somehow, after all, and Jazz does it without hurting anyone else, which is good for everyone) and mostly stay out of (serious) trouble. 

When one of her regular (and more-lucrative) clients offers her a very different sort of job, though, everything changes. Things go wrong in a huge way, and Jazz finds herself at the center of a conspiracy worth gazillions to more than one party. Suddenly, she is in (seriously-big) trouble, not to mention hella danger... and finds herself in the unusual (and undesirable) position of having to ask others for help trying to fix the humdinger of a mess she has landed in.
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To Artemis' credit, Jazz is a feisty character with oodles of spunk (that plays nicely with her talents and skill sets, which I can really appreciate). There are also several interesting characters for her to play off of (something The Martian had little of, given its structure), which allows for some humorous scenes. Artemis, itself, is a strong presence here, too, which further makes for good reading.

One of the biggest problems I had with Artemis, though, is the science... or rather, the amount of it. There were long passages when my eyes sort of glazed over, reading about pressurizing this or welding that. (Err on the side of being a bit skimpy on the tech instead of throwing it all in kitchen-sink style, I say.)

Another thing is that it seems to take an awfully long time to get to the "situation"... which (descriptions of the science around/behind it, aside) then doesn't take all that long to resolve, considering the build-up. I felt a little cheated at the end, sort of like, "Is that it?". (Again, this comes in stark comparison to The Martian, in which the entire story deals with handling one, always-growing, ever-changing problem.)

Finally, in the realm of "it ain't broke, so don't fix it", Weir may have only two novels under his belt, to date, but both follow a very similar pattern... which is notable, when that formula (for instance, the messages to a friend on earth) is so specific. (As it happens, it's a good formula that serves him well, but still...)

Am I glad I read Artemis? Yes, and I  enjoyed it (though I definitely didn't love it). Is it something of a letdown, after the brilliance of Weir's first book? Well, yeah, that, too. (It wasn't quite "meh", but it wasn't "OMG, wow", either.) Will I look forward to whatever comes next from Weir's head and pen (ok, keyboard)? Absolutely... so in the end, no harm, no foul (even if this outing wasn't his best work). 

~GlamKitty

[Note: I received an advance copy of this book in return for providing my honest thoughts on it via this review.]